Day 17

Breakfast in the dining room which is so elegant and the service is impeccable.  The Hay-Adams is directly across the road from the White House so we head across to see if we can get a glimpse of our famous neighbours … just kidding!  You can in fact take a tour of the White House, but if you are not a US citizen, you must apply to your embassy and expect to wait about four months to receive a response.  

We then head down toward the Smithsonian’s and visit the DAR on the way - Daughters of the American Revolution.  There is the most magnificent library in this building and a number of ‘period’ rooms along with various relics and antiques from past days.  Every member of the DAR must be either related or a supporter of Americans during the American War of Independence.  -  We continue down to visit the WWII Memorial and a view down the Remembrance Pool to the Lincoln Memorial.  Across to the Washington Monument, which is like a giant obelisk – you can also take a tour of this Memorial but you must line up at 8.30am at the nearby kiosk to obtain a ticket.  It’s first-in, best-dressed and they release 1200 tickets per day.

We continue walking down to Independence Avenue and then visit our first Smithsonian – American History.  We don’t spend a lot of time here.  It’s not quite as extensive as some of the other museums.  We head down a bit further to the Museum of Natural History.  This has more appealing displays and while there we see both the 3-D presentation of the Dinosaurs and Life Under the Sea.  

We opt for a taxi back home to give us time to rest before dinner.  Our new best friend emails to say he’s been caught up in Baltimore so it will be just the two of us dining tonight .

Dinner at Zaytinya tonight – well recommended – but it’s raining when we depart so I am forced to take off my new shoes to ‘bolt’ for the taxi.  When back at the hotel we head downstairs to the bar where Tom has also just arrived – this was about 9.30 … finally back in our room at 1.00am!